


did you lose it if you never knew you had it? (yes)

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: dimension 20 [15]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Campaign 01 Season 01: Fantasy High Freshman Year (Dimension 20), Child Death (Offscreen), Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt No Comfort, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: kristen rolls a miraculous nat 20 on her last death save. gorgug... doesn’t.
Relationships: Digby Thistlespring & Wilma Thistlespring, Penny Luckstone & Gorgug Thistlespring
Series: dimension 20 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706107
Comments: 44
Kudos: 115





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> MADE MYSELF SAD MADE MYSELF SAD MADE MYSELF SAD

It’s Digby who answers the phone, goggles pushed up to his forehead as he half listens, half yells suggestions to Wilma back in the workshop. 

He’s only half listening, so when the voice on the other end of the line says, _I’m calling about your son_ , it takes him a second to register the tone of their voice. The weighted silence. 

Digby listens to a stranger tell him that his son is dead and Wilma sees her husband’s face pale and his knees begin to shake, and she takes the phone from him. 

“What is it? Is Gorgug okay?” she asks, voice quivering because she can see the answers to her questions in Digby’s horror but she has to _know_. 

“Mrs Thistlespring, I’m very sorry...”

When they arrive at the school, it’s mostly emptied out. The hallways lack the buzzing of students, and the silence rings in Wilma’s ears. 

She ignores the detective that tries to speak to her as she enters the cafeteria, pushes her aside when she tries to stand in Wilma’s way. 

The sheet they used is too small to cover his feet completely, and Wilma chokes out a sob, Digby mirroring her tears. 

The quiet, desperate hope that somehow, they were wrong, that it wasn’t _their_ son, is crushed as the Thistlesprings hold each other and weep. 

Their mourning is interrupted by the flashy arrival of Arthur Aguefort himself.

“And who...? Ah, yes, the parents, of course. Terribly sorry for your loss, a tragedy, though as we all death is hardly the _end_ -”

His rambling is cut off by Wilma viciously striding up to him. She stands just above his waist, but somehow she manages to look furiously down. 

“ _How did this happen?_ ” she demands, and in another universe, six children would be shocked at her anger. One of them especially. In another universe, six children would cackle in delight as a tiny gnome dressed down their principal, would high five their friend at his _badass parents_. 

Instead, a goblin woman stands awkwardly in the corner, trying not to notice the torrent of grief and pain tumbling out of Wilma and Digby Thistlespring.

His funeral is held on a bright, sunny day. The birds of the cemetery chirp and sing and Digby is clinging to a small metal flower. There are still bloodstains hidden between the petals, where his fingers couldn’t reach to wipe them away. 

At the sounds of approaching footsteps, Digby turns. There are five of them, teenagers, his son’s age. 

It’s Wilma who approaches them, reaches out to the freckled human girl. Clutches her hands and asks, “Were you his friends?”

Neither of the grieving gnomes notice Kristen’s guilty flinch. Nor the brief look of shame on Fabian’s face, or the discomfort on Riz’s. 

( _You weren’t a good enough healer._ )

( _You punched him in the stomach_.)

( _You never wanted to see this kind of loss from the other side._ )

“...yeah. Yeah, we were his friends,” she says, and tears run down Digby’s face. 

“Oh... oh, I’m so glad. He has- had such a big heart,” Wilma says, leading them back to his grave. 

No one speaks as Digby takes Wilma’s hand and they put the tin flower on the closed lid.


	2. friend. a person who gives assistance.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes souls on their way out can be trapped. Penny makes a friend, in the long months of her imprisonment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gonna be honest, i thought about making this its own fic since it's p clear from chapter 1 that i Did Not Intend to write a chapter two. but. i also enjoy causing people pain. so <3

Penny doesn’t know how long she’s been in this crystal, but it’s long enough that she’s resigned to sitting in the middle of the crystalline layers, playing at the embroidery on the hem of her shirt. There aren’t any locks to pick, no hinges to crack, _nothing_ , and it’s grating to be trapped somewhere she truly can’t escape from, but Penny is nothing if not practical.

 _Someone_ will get her out eventually, they have to, because the other option is being stuck in here forever, and if she thinks too long about that her vision starts to blur with tears and thinking negatively won’t help anybody.

So when a half orc boy appears, looking confused and upset, it’s rather a surprise.

He doesn’t see her, instead looking out into the fractals. 

"Hello? Who are you? Are you here to get me out?”

Gorgug stares at the overlapping crystal walls and tries to remember how he got here. It’s his first day. There was... a fight, in the cafeteria, he went down. He remembers his vision fading to black, Kristen shouting at him... is this a spell? 

He looks down at his hoodie but doesn’t see any blood, and when he tries to think back to getting the injury, his memory is fuzzy. He tries harder, his confusion making his blood race, but he can feel his memory slipping away like sand through his fingers. 

How did he get here?

“-are you here to get me out?”

He turns to see- a halfling girl. A few years older than him, in a green skirt and blue sweater. She’s got dagger holsters on her belt, though they’re empty. She’s looking at him with a mix of hope and fear, and he frowns. 

“I- I don’t, know? I don’t remember how I got here...”

She sighs, and begins to pace. “Do you know someone named Johnny? A tiefling guy, wears leather jackets? He’s the one who trapped me in here. Did he get you too?”

Gorgug worries at the cuffs of his sleeves. 

“Uh, no? I- I don’t remember much, but it’s my first day at Aguefort... I think I was in a fight?”

Penny falls in a huff to the floor, and Gorgug tentatively joins her. 

“Well. There isn’t really much to do here. I’m Penny,” she says, holding out a hand to Gorgug. 

He takes it gently, used to hands much smaller than his, and shakes it. 

“Gorgug. Uh, Thistlespring. I- it’s good to meet you?”

Penny smiles at him. “Sorry about you getting trapped, but I can’t say I’m not glad to have someone to talk to. Thistlespring, huh? Sounds like a gnomish name.”

Gorgug blushes, and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Oh, yeah... my parents are gnomes... i’m adopted.”

“Really? That’s so cool...”

  
  


Penny sits up as the crystal walls of her prison begin to crack. The lines run up and down, and the floor begins to shake. Gorgug catches her as she loses her balance, and she reaches for a dagger only to growl in irritation when she remembers she doesn’t have them on her. 

“What’s _happening_? Are we getting out? Oh _shit_ -”

Penny comes to with a burning sensation on her hands and sun beating down on her face. She realizes it’s sand when she tries to stand up. 

“What-?”

Sam, Danielle, Ostentatia, Zelda, Antiope, and Katya are all scattered around her, in various states of disarray, and she runs to Sam. 

“Oh my gods, I’m so glad you’re okay! What _happened_? Wait- where’s Gorgug?”

Penny looks around again, combing the landscape, but there’s no sign of the awkward kid she’d befriended in the months(?) she’d been trapped. She can feel her heart sinking.

“Penny? Who are you talking about?”

“I- I don’t understand, he was in the crystal with me, if we’re all here...”

An elf woman walks over, griffin by her side, asking her about Johnny Spells and the palimpsests. Gorgug is pushed to the back of her mind as Penny learns exactly what’s happening. 

Kalvaxus’ body is lying in shreds on the floor of the gym, and Penny and her daggers are coated in dragon blood. She’s surrounded by her friends, her _party_ , but as she takes in her victory something is missing. Some _one_. 

She turns to Danielle, the last one to be taken. 

“Hey, Dani, did you know somebody named Gorgug, Thistlespring? He’s a half orc, a freshman-”

Danielle turns to her. The scent of freshly fallen leaves and vegetation surrounds her from all the magic she’s been casting, and she tilts her head to the side. 

“Uh, hey Katya! Wasn’t there a kid who died on the first day?”

“Yeah, Thistlespring was his name, why?”

Danielle turns back to Penny. “I don’t know why you wanna know, but yeah. There was an attack in the cafeteria on the first day, he went down. Actually, I think those freshman were the ones who were with him.”

Penny thanks her, and jogs to the entrance. There’s no way it’s the same person. It’s just- not possible. But- Gorgug is her _friend_. They talked for months! There’s no way she imagined him. So it’s just her luck the first person she sees is a detective. 

“Hey, Riz! Are you busy?”

She feels a little bad interrupting his conversation with his mom, but Sklonda nods at her and walks off. 

“Oh, uh, hey Penny, what’s _up_?”

He’s just as awkward as she remembers, although he seems- better off, now. Good for him. 

“I’ve got a mystery for you. Do you know someone named Gorgug?”

At his name, Riz’s eyes darken, and then they go back to normal. “I- we didn’t… _know_ him, not really. It was our first fight, we were all in detention. There was this corn thing- it. It killed him. After that the rest of us got together and started investigating and, well…”

Penny frowns again. “Okay, but that’s not possible. Because he was _there_ , Riz, in the crystal with me. It’s- timekeeping in those things isn’t _easy_ , but we were in there for months. He’s- he’s a friend of mine. Or, he was.”

Riz is staring at her, and she realizes she’s still covered in dragon blood and sort of looming over him. And used to be his babysitter. 

“Sorry. I just- don’t understand. How did I talk to him if he was _dead_?”

Riz tugs on his cap and starts pacing. 

“Well, the palimpsests _are_ sort of, demiplanes, Adaine said. It’s- it’s _possible_ , since your crystal was the first one to hold a soul, that it was different? In some way? Not, not _perfect_ , yet. And maybe his soul got _caught_. But I don’t think-”

Riz trails off, looking at her sadly. 

“When we got you guys out, we destroyed the crystal. It released you, and you’re here because you have a physical body. But if Gorgug was in there with you when the crystal was destroyed…”

“Then his soul was released. And he’s gone.”

Penny breathes deeply, and blinks rapidly. She can feel the tears form, and Riz looks panicked, so she shoos him away. It’s not _fair_. The one good thing about all of this, aside from forming the Maidens, had been Gorgug’s company. It’s not _fair_ that he’s gone.

The Thistlespring tree at the end of Little Branch lane is dark. Darker than the other sparkling, flashy homes around it at least, with the pulleys silent and the kites lying sadly on the ground. The absence of sound seems to suck the light from it, making the normally bright leaves wilt. 

Penny walks up the little path to the door, and tries to imagine Gorgug living here. He’d told her about his home, his room with its wide open window that faced the sun, the doorways his parents had knocked the tops out of to make it easier for him. (He still hit his head, but the memory of the gesture made it hurt less, he said.)

She knocks on the wooden door, and thinks of her own house. She doesn’t live that far from here, even. It’s not odd they never met, given she’s three years older, but she wonders if she would have been friends with him anyway. Probably not. She would have missed out.

A gnome woman opens the door. She has the kind, round face Gorgug described, though there are lines of grief woven into it now.

“Um, hello. Wilma Thistlespring?”

The woman, Wilma, nods, and gives her a small smile. 

“How can I help you, sweetheart? Do you need a ride somewhere?”

“I- no, thank you. My name’s Penny, Penny Luckstone? I was, uh, one of the girls that got trapped in a crystal. I’ve got, um, something a bit weird-sounding to tell you, but it’s true. It’s, uh. About Gorgug.”

At his name, Wilma looks up, eyes wide. 

“Well, you’d better come in then. Digby! We have a guest!”

Penny takes a seat at their kitchen table as a gnome man comes in.

“I- a little while after I first got taken, there was- well, I. Met him. He was in the crystal with me, something about-”

“-extra planar spaces would capture outbound souls, _oh_ -”

Wilma speaks over her explanation and Penny remembers Gorgug’s parents are tinkerers. Wilma is beginning to cry, and Penny holds one of her hands. Digby is holding the other.

“We- I knew him for months. We talked, like, all the time, and I- I don’t think I’d be the same person if I hadn’t had his company. I just wanted to tell you, I guess…”

Wilma smiles at her, and it’s fragile but bright. “Tell me, how was he? Was he happy?”

Penny sits at the Thistlespring table and tells them about the Gorgug she knew. She mentions his kindness, his optimism, his quiet deadpan humor that made her laugh even when she began to doubt she’d ever escape. 

From this day forward, Penny Luckstone has a standing invitation to the Thistlespring tree, and she makes frequent use of it. Gradually, light returns to the tree on the end of Little Branch lane.


End file.
